Varieties of Transition from Authoritarianism to Democracy

This article draws on historical, comparative, and structural analyses of various processes described as democratization or democratic transitions. The opening sections address the meaning and general theories of democratization and the emergence of democratic transition studies. Structural aspects, different actors, the process of negotiations and roundtable talks and their impact on the rule of law and on the constitutional aspect of democratic transitions are discussed, and close links between democratization, the rule of law, and constitutionalism are analyzed in the following sections. Finally, problems of transitional justice and dealing with the authoritarian past are considered as an intrinsic part of democratic transitions.